Filing down FMJ'S bullets

[Carman]

I haven't ever tried this but I am sure someone has. I was just wondering if anyone has ever tried filing down the tip of a FMJ bullet, just enough to expose the lead, to see if it expands on impact, and by how much.

 

[justgoto]

Supposedly, since the back end is open, the lead shoots out the tip of the bullet before it gets out of the barrel.

http://www.go2gbo.com/forums/index.php?topic=228561.msg1099268455#msg1099268455

 

[Carman]

That would be interesting to see....but only if I could find somebody else to try it.

 

[Topshot]

I have shot thousands of them.
I didn't bother filing the tips. I just cut the tips off with a pair of metal snips.
We used them years ago to cull Roos because they were cheap and we needed plenty of them.
Accuracy with the tips clipped was not great but good enough for the job. They were very explosive and did the job quite well at the close distances that Roos were shot at in the light at night.

 

[justgoto]

I have shot thousands of them.
I didn't bother filing the tips. I just cut the tips off with a pair of metal snips.
We used them years ago to cull Roos because they were cheap and we needed plenty of them.
Accuracy with the tips clipped was not great but good enough for the job. They were very explosive and did the job quite well at the close distances that Roos were shot at in the light at night.

So it is a myth that they'll shoot the core out then. I learn something new every day.

 

[hnts4fun]

I had to smile when I saw this thread posted. As a kid we had a pretty good supply of 30-06 Lake City ball ammo and even a bunch of corrosive stuff laying around. Like Topshot, I would use tin snips to cut the tips of the bullets off. I would take it one step further and try to smooth out my work using a bench grinder. It's a wonder I didn't blow my hands off, or worse, as some of those rounds got pretty hot.

I don't know how those bullets would have shot at long-distance, but for us shots were typically under 100 yards and the results were indeed explosive. No core separations that I was ever aware of but these things created one heck of an exit wound.

 

[Topshot]

So it is a myth that they'll shoot the core out then. I learn something new every day.

Never had a problem with core spitting.

We played about with how much of the tip to snip off. Too much and it effected accuracy quite a bit. Too little and the odd one would not expand.

In the end we would snip off just enough to see a good amount of lead, then make a second snip at 90 degrees to the first to make the point look a bit more even and square.

We got them cheap because some shooters were buying ex-mil ammo, pulling the bullets and replacing them with soft points for use on pigs. We were happy to collect their rejects and use them for the cost of a six pack of beer.
A lot of the gun shops also sold them very cheap.

 

[Carman]

Wow. Glad to know I am not the only person with a warped sense of curiosity about stuff like this.

 

[TimeOnTarget]

My grandfather and I used to snip the tips the take a drill and turn them into hollowpoints. Guess I can't attest to accuracy one way or another.

 

[Stormrider]

I have seated FMJ bullets backwards so it was a flat based bullet with a rather large soft point.
Killed pig wonderfully well. Shot about 4" group at 100y.

 

[7 loader]

Worked well for me years ago. If you are hand loading weigh the bullets and adjust the charge accordingly. And they do make a good cavitation path in the vitals in a deer.

 

[Loner]

I had a bunch of 180's that I made into 170 lever gun bullets the same way. 30-30 is
slow but they shot great.

 

[justgoto]

I have videos of me shooting FMJ bullets with the tips cut off; here is the latest one.



To cut to the chase; I needed to trim off more than I thought it would take, and they are amazingly accurate. Using the 30-06 and the 30-30 at 250 yards, the altered bullets had the same POI as the unaltered ones.